


Paradox

by JWade



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-13
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-30 20:31:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 19,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13959432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JWade/pseuds/JWade
Summary: Heaven's young princess, the Nephilim Sariel, notices some alarming changes happening in heaven, starting with the disappearance of her fathers and sets out on a quest through time to restore the timeline and save the world she knows. Getting her fathers back together is just the first step.





	1. Prologue

Sariel paced in her room in heaven’s castle. She was missing something. She knew she was. Sure, her fathers went on trips from time to time, but never without any warning and never for so long. To make matters worse, her papa’s throne was gone completely. It didn’t make any sense. There were a lot of things these days that didn’t make any sense. There were angels disappearing every day, and there were twice that as many as hundreds at a time disappeared on the same day. They were losing so many and the population was growing shrinking. She wished her fathers were here, but since they weren’t, as the princess it was her duty to figure out what was happening to their people and try to fix it. She couldn’t manage to find any clues though. 

One day, there was an uproar in heaven. She and the others like her were being slaughtered. They tried to get in to get her, but the castle was too well protected. She didn’t stay there long though. She saved as many as she could and left, creating a new dimension for them to hide in. She had only managed to save twenty of the more than a hundred Nephilim and that filled her with great sorrow. The fact that most of those twenty were young children definitely cut down on the time she could spend trying to figure this mess out. One of the older ones made a comment one day that gave her a clue though. “It was like they forgot that we were supposed to be there.”

After that, she left the little ones in the hands of their elders more and more as she delved into visions of the past to find the problem. She was sure that she was on the right track when she saw Lucifer walking the earth. Someone was messing with time and she only had until the timeline caught back up with itself to fix it. Once it had, there would be no fixing it and she would cease to exist and probably the rest of the Nephilim as well. The worst part was, it didn’t seem that she had much time. She found the first incident that she was sure was a mistake just ten years ago in the timeline. Not only had Lucifer been walking the earth, but he had fathered a Nephilim too. She knew that had never happened and it seemed that Nephilim were still forbidden at that point since all of heaven was hunting him. That was probably the impetus for the change that had them being hunted in heaven as well. The only problem was that her fathers had taken over heaven years before that and abolished those laws against Nephilim. 

She continued walking backward through the timeline, looking for the initial split. It was difficult since she wasn’t a part of the world through most of it, but the big events she could say with relative certainty never happened or she would have heard about them. The release of the darkness, the fall of the angels, the knights of hell, the leviathan, Eve, the aborted apocalypse, and there it was. The first meeting between her parents. She could see the taint of a lurking seraph in that memory, though she couldn’t quite sense him. Hopefully, if she was closer she would be able to do so. He had obviously found a way to cloak himself from her papa, but she was a lot more powerful than he was. The fact that she could tell he was there at all even from so far away boded well for that thought. 

Sariel went to the other children, and a few young adults, and told them that she would be leaving for a while to try and fix things. She packed a bag with anything she thought she might need and left straight away. She didn’t have time to make too many plans, but she could plan better when she got there and had a better idea of what was going on. She arrived a few days before the meeting, glad that she would always be able to sense either of her fathers anywhere. She went back and forth between them for a few hours at a time, waiting for their company and taking the downtime to make some tentative plans. She had to make sure that everything stayed on track. She was glad that she had learned how to smother her power. In this time, the hint of a Nephilim on earth would empty all of heaven on her trail, not to mention both the seraph and her papa would be able to sense her a mile away. 

She felt the seraph’s presence just her dad walked into the college to meet her papa for the first time and she immediately flew straight to him. “Castiel. What do you think you’re doing?” she snapped.


	2. Chapter 2

Last time:  
“Castiel! What do you think you’re doing?”

Now:  
“I’m fixing things back to the way they should be,” he replied heatedly. 

“No. You’re making a mess,” Sariel pointed out. “You know that time extracts a penalty for those who meddle. You have no idea what your actions will unleash.”

“I know that abominations like you will no longer be tolerated and Michael will stay in charge of heaven the way it should have been.”

“No. They won’t. In this new timeline you’re creating, they succeed in starting the apocalypse, but fail to finish it. Michael and Lucifer both end up in the cage. Raphael is killed shortly after and a whole string of events later and both heaven and earth are on the verge of extinction,” Sariel tried to reason with him. 

“You lie,” Castiel accused. 

“You have known me a long time, Castiel. No matter what you think of me, you know that I have never been prone to lies. Go home. Forget all this and we can let bygones be bygones,” she offered. One of her father’s highest laws was that no one was to harm another angel and she wasn’t going to break that if she could help it. She would prefer that he go on trial and be punished for his attempts, but if the only way to get him to leave in peace was to offer him freedom she would do so. She would let her dads make the final decision later once everything was set back to rights. 

Castiel wavered for a moment, trying to decide what to do here. He knew that he was no match for the archangel’s Nephilim, but he couldn’t…wouldn’t...just abandon this mission. He decided that a strategic retreat was in order. She had to let her guard down sometime and, in the meantime, he would try and figure out how to strengthen his amulet so that she couldn’t find him either. 

Sariel turned her attention to her fathers, marveling at how young her dad looked, in contrast to the way her papa never aged. She smiled as she watched their over the top flirting and sly glances and breathed a sigh of relief when Sam told Dean to go on without him and stayed to talk to Gabriel. That was how it should be. She knew from her observation that Castiel would have influenced Sam to leave with Dean, so at least she had managed to prevent that. She would need to stay vigilant though. She could see in his eyes before he left that he wasn’t going to give up. 

 

Sam waited outside, leaning against the wall, for the janitor to leave. He had taken a bit of a ribbing from his brother for wanting to hook up with the middle aged janitor on a campus of hot young co-eds, but there was just something about the man that drew him in like a moth to flame. When he saw the object of his affections locking the door and turn to walk down the steps, he stepped away from the wall into his line of sight, trying his best to ignore his nerves. 

Gabriel noticed the hunter as soon as he moved and he felt a brief wave of fear. Surely they couldn’t be onto him already. It wasn’t until he saw the hopeful look on the man’s face that he let out the breath he had been holding. “Heya, Sam. Forget something?” he asked lazily. 

“Nah. I was just wondering if you wanted to grab a bite to eat or something. Kind of an apology for making you stay late?” Sam suggested, giving him an out if he chose to take it. 

Gabriel couldn’t help the warm smile that spread on his face at that. “Sure,” he said happily, reaching over to take the hunter’s hand as they walked. He had no intention of pretending this was anything other than what it was. He noticed Sam’s bright blush, but the hunter didn’t protest at all, so he knew he hadn’t read the situation wrong. Since Sam hadn’t suggested any place in particular for dinner, Gabriel managed to take control and took him to a rather nice restaurant where they spent hours in conversation and then Gabriel taught the hunter how to dance. Sam was rather clumsy at first, but he soon got the hang of it once he started letting Gabriel lead. By the time they were leaving after midnight, both knew they were falling hard and when Gabriel invited Sam back to his place, the hunter didn’t even try to object. 

Once they were entering Gabriel’s apartment, Sariel took a more distant observation point. She had no interest in watching them, but still wanted to stay close enough to sense anyone else doing so. She waited the night out in happy silence. Hearing stories of your parents’ meeting was a very different thing than seeing it for yourself. She knew from their stories that it had been pretty much love at first sight for both of them and seeing it happen was magical. 

She saw them leave the next morning and decided to follow Sam. Castiel wouldn’t risk doing much to Gabriel given who he was. There was too much chance of him noticing something off. She would check in on her papa often, but she needed to keep the majority of her attention on her dad. She followed him back to the motel room he was sharing with Uncle Dean and watched as her uncle jumped on him for bailing the night before. “Look, Dean. You took the night before that off to hit on chicks at the bar while I was doing all the work. Now we’re even. If you want to goof off for today that’s fine, and then you can work tonight while I’m out. That fair enough for you?” Sam asked impatiently. 

“Fine. Whatever. I’m pretty sure this case is a bust anyway. I’m sure you’ll confirm that before you head out and then we can leave town tomorrow after your night with your boy toy,” Dean grumbled. 

Sam refused to consider the sick feeling in his gut at the thought of leaving town. He knew that he didn’t have a choice. That didn’t mean it would be easy. True to his word, he worked all day, only zoning out to think about Gabe a few times over the course of the day. No matter how hard he tried though, he could find nothing to justify staying here any longer. It was obvious that this was just a matter of a random jumper. It was with a heavier heart that he left to meet Gabe when he got off work. Tonight was pizza and an arcade. There were some pool tables there too and they played a little bit of that in between the other games and Sam had a blast. He couldn’t remember the last time he had let lose so much. 

It wasn’t until they were lying in bed later that Sam mentioned that he would probably be leaving town in the morning and Gabriel felt that same sick twisting feeling in his gut that Sam had that morning. He couldn’t let that happen. Not yet, and not just because they were wrong about there being nothing here. As Sam drifted off to sleep, Gabriel snapped his fingers and an alien spaceship snagged a frat boy off the street. Maybe he was a little heavy-handed in his panic, but it should do the job. 

Sariel, from her distant watchpoint, felt the manifestation of the spaceship and rolled her eyes with a chuckle. Her papa was such a doofus sometimes. She saw them leave again the next morning and this time she noticed that Sam looked rather tense. She supposed he had already gotten the news about the supposed alien abduction and she followed along as they walked together towards Crawford hall and he absentmindedly kissed Gabriel before heading off to the crowd where his brother was beckoning him over. 

Sariel followed along as they interviewed people, including the brat that was abducted and then in the afternoon, Dean left Sam to the research. By the time Sam was going to meet Gabe he’d pretty much chalked it up to a hoax, but told his brother to make sure while he was gone. This time Sam and Gabe had a picnic in the park, talking until dark and then mixing the conversation with stargazing until the wee hours of the morning. Gabriel had asked early on if they’d heard about the alien thing and Sam told him that he didn’t believe it for a second. He missed the look on Gabriel’s face and the snap of his fingers a little later. Once they left the park, Sam, once again, went home with Gabriel.

Sam felt like he had barely closed his eyes before his phone was ringing and waking him up again. Apparently, there was another body and Dean needed backup to get into the morgue to check it out. Sam sighed sadly and slipped out of bed, waking Gabriel in the process. “Sam?” he mumbled sleepily. 

“Sorry, Gabe. Emergency came up. Go back to sleep,” Sam whispered, pressing a soft kiss to his lover’s lips. 

“You’re not leaving…” Gabriel asked worriedly. 

“No. I would never leave without at least saying goodbye. I promise,” Sam vowed. 

“Kay,” Gabriel mumbled, pulling the blanket back over him, not even realizing that the words, “love you,” slipped out as he fell back asleep. 

When Sam heard those words, he froze for a good few minutes. He knew how he felt and he had been pretty sure that Gabe was on the same page, but hearing it made it real. It made it a thousand times harder to walk away and it was already going to kill him. He didn’t know if he could do it. “I love you, Gabe,” he whispered to the room, despite the fact that the other man was too deeply asleep to hear it. He blinked the tears out of his eyes and headed out to meet his brother. 

After a long day of searching the sewers, followed by a fight between the brothers when Dean thought that Sam had let the air out of his tires, and only had Sam participating because of sheer exhaustion and crankiness, they heard a knock on the door. Dean hadn’t mentioned that he’d called Bobby for help before he called Sam. After giving him the rundown, with a lot of bickering between them in the process, Bobby immediately pegged that they were after a trickster.


	3. Chapter 3

Sariel had been watching amusedly as her father and uncle fought like children but when the idea came up that her papa might be the trickster, she sobered and paid close attention. This was the moment that it could all unravel if she wasn’t careful. They had told stories of this time and the fact that it had all been so close to going the other way made her more than a little nervous. She was rooting for her dad to stand up to them, but it wasn’t until Uncle Dean and Uncle Bobby were putting the finishing touches on their plan that he finally spoke up. “No,” Sam said firmly. 

“No?” Bobby asked incredulously. “No what?” 

“We’re not doing it like this. We will go talk to him. Find out why. What he had to gain, why he’s been baiting us, and then we make a choice,” Sam ordered. He wasn’t going to sit here and listen to his family discussing the murder of the man he loved. Despite everything he’d done, Sam couldn’t just turn his back on him. He couldn’t just walk away without at least giving him a chance. 

“He’s been killing people, Sam,” Dean said wearily. 

“Or maybe that’s all been illusions too. Like Bobby said, they can just think stuff up. Maybe he brought us here for a reason and was creating illusions of all this to keep us interested. I’m not saying we have to give him a free pass here. I’m just saying hear him out. Please. For me,” Sam begged. The two loud sighs he got in response told him that he had won this argument…for now. None of them heard the third relieved sigh from their invisible watcher. 

Now that was settled the three of them, armed with stakes just in case, headed to the college. They met Gabe coming out of the locker area and Dean, quite unsubtly, brandished his stake with a harsh, “We need to talk.”

Gabriel blinked at them for a moment, surprised that they were going this route, and decided to play along for now. He nodded and led them to a rather large empty office and he plopped into the chair behind the desk, leaning back and putting his feet on the desk lazily. It wasn’t like they could actually hurt him after all. “So you figured me out,” he said with a smirk. 

“Why?” Sam asked heartbrokenly, no longer able to believe that maybe they were wrong. 

Gabriel sobered a bit at the pain in Sam’s voice. “There are a lot of whys for a lot of things. I suppose I’ll start with the general stuff and we’ll work from there. My name is Loki. I’m a trickster and I take jerks and teach them a lesson. I only kill the ones who are irredeemably evil. The rest just get taught a lesson to hopefully change their ways in the future.”

“The professor? He was irredeemably evil?” Dean scoffed. 

“He was close, but he wasn’t quite there yet. He wasn’t supposed to die. The girl I snapped up didn’t get between him and the door. Why he thought the window a better escape than the open door I have no idea and no one was more surprised than me when he landed on that step behind me,” Gabriel told them. 

“What did he do that was so bad? He was a teacher for crying out loud,” Dean protested. 

“A teacher who raped his students, not all of them overage either, and held their grades hostage to keep them quiet,” Gabriel told him. “I gave him a chance. If he let the girl I snapped up go, then nothing would have happened, but he didn’t. When he started to push her, her face began rotting off to scare him. That’s when he decided to jump instead of running out the door. Maybe it was a guilty conscience, I don’t know.”

“A-and the researcher?” Sam asked, feeling a lot better about the whole situation and rather thrown for a loop with the new information on Mr. Morality. 

“Now him…he was pure unadulterated evil. He did just enough actual science to keep the college off his back and keep the test subjects coming, but the real research he did was in torture. Seeing how long he could keep them alive, how loud they could scream, even how long it would take for their minds to snap under different circumstances. If I told you all the injuries I healed on the animals in that lab you would lose your lunches, no matter how strong your stomachs are. Even I nearly did, and I’ve seen more horrors in the last few millennia than you could imagine.”

“But they were just animals,” Dean protested, not sure how much he believed that made a difference, but felt the need to point it out just the same. 

“JUST animals, you say. They were living beings that were caged and helpless and at his mercy. They felt pain just as much as you or I. Even more because they lacked the understanding to deal with it. The ONLY reason he didn’t do the same to humans is because it would be harder for him to get away with. He got off on their screams. Literally,” Gabriel said darkly and all three of the hunters looked a little green at that implication. 

“The frat kid with the aliens?” Bobby asked, wanting to get all of them out in the open even if that one wasn’t exactly fatal. The kid was still traumatized. 

“He was a real piece of work. Only the fact that he was still too young and naïve to truly understand the consequences of his actions got him off so easily. I’m sure you’ve all heard stories about fraternity pledgemasters,” he waited until he got a nod from all three of them before he continued. “Well he took it a few dozen steps further. He enjoyed those paddles a little too much for one thing. Let’s just say there’s a reason he was probed so much. The things he’d done would have had him executed in some countries, not to mention the sheer delight he took from humiliating other people in general. No, he needed to learn a lesson. See what it was like on the other side and hopefully realize that his actions have consequences.” He could see that the hunters were looking far less bloodthirsty than they had been when they arrived, so he relaxed another fraction. 

“Okay, so why string us along like this? You can’t tell me that you couldn’t do all this without leaving a trace, or even wait until we gave up and left town before going back to work,” Dean asked. 

Gabriel’s eyes cut to Sam and then quickly looked away before he sighed and said, “Because I didn’t want you to leave.” He didn’t see the look that Sam gave Dean and Bobby or the way he jerked his head towards the door, but he did notice when they got up to leave. 

Once they were alone, Sam walked around the desk and sat on it, in front of Gabriel. “Why didn’t you want us to leave?” he asked softly. 

“I didn’t want YOU to leave,” Gabriel said, making it clear that Sam was the only one he really cared about in that equation, but not wanting to go any further with that statement. 

Sam wasn’t going to let it go at that though. He reached out a hand to Gabriel’s face, tucking a lock of hair behind his ear and cupping his cheek. “Why?” he asked again. He felt like he had just been given the key to everything he ever dreamed. The man he loved wasn’t evil, and would be able to come see him wherever he went. Leaving didn’t have to be goodbye, and that was the greatest gift he could imagine, but they had to get there first. 

Gabriel looked up and got completely lost in the hunter’s eyes, and he couldn’t help the words that came out. “Because, I love you,” he whispered, almost inaudibly. 

Sam let a grin break out on his face. “I love you too, Gabe…Loki…whoever you are,” Sam said softly before leaning over for a kiss. It was another hour before they left that office and Sam blushed a bit at the thought of its owner finding out what had happened on his desk, but he couldn’t bring himself to have any regrets. Sam told him they would need to head out of town soon, but made Gabriel promise to be around, now that he knew that he could, and Gabriel wasted no time in making that promise.


	4. Chapter 4

Sariel breathed a sigh of relief that the worst was over. Sam knew that Gabriel wasn’t human and accepted him anyway. She knew it would be quite a while before he found out the truth about what Gabriel actually was, but that would be much easier to take than this one. She did relax a bit after that, but still stuck pretty close to her fathers, just in case, making sure to keep her distance whenever they were doing anything private. She had walked in on them once when she was a kid and that was a sight she had no desire to ever see again. Unfortunately, Sariel didn’t consider the other angle the rogue seraph might take to interfere. 

It had been almost a month since they left the college that Castiel appeared in Dean’s room while Sam and Gabriel were out. He was taking a gamble on the fact that the little abomination was following her sires rather than paying attention here. “What are you?” Dean asked heatedly, already pulling his gun despite the fact that he knew that anything that could just appear out of thin air would likely be immune to bullets. 

“I am an angel, Dean Winchester,” Castiel told him. 

“Bullshit,” Dean scoffed only to have his jaw hit the floor when the being unfurled his wings, showing their shadows on the wall behind him. “How…why…” 

“I am here to warn you. Your brother’s soul is in grave jeopardy. His relationship is an atrocity that should never be allowed. I’m afraid it is up to you to save him,” Castiel told him, seeing the alarm rising on the hunter’s face and mentally patting himself on the back. Even if this didn’t break them up, it would at least put a wedge there. One that he could use later on. 

Dean was worried, but at the same time he liked Loki. Still, if it would harm Sam’s soul, that had to be a little more important. But still, “It’s not like he’d just listen to me.”

“You must make him,” Castiel said urgently. “You must make him understand. Make him listen. This cannot be allowed to continue.”

“I-I’ll do my best,” Dean promised and he was suddenly alone in the room again. He sighed heavily and plopped down in the chair, putting his head in his hands. Now what was he going to do. This was a nightmare. By the time Sam and Loki got back a few hours later, Dean had the beginnings of a plan. He was sure that Loki wouldn’t want to hurt Sam either. If he made sure they both knew, then he would have a better chance of fixing things than if he just told Sam. Once they got back, Dean motioned them to sit down. “We need to talk.”

“Bout what?” Gabriel asked lazily propping his feet up on the table. 

“I had a visit today. A very important visit who told me something rather worrying,” Dean said trying to beat around the bush. There wasn’t much to do but come out and say it though. “It turns out your relationship is destroying Sam’s soul,” he said bluntly. 

Sam’s face was a study in contradictions. Anger, fear, concern, distrust all warring within him. So much so that he couldn’t even manage to speak. Gabriel had no such compunctions though. “That’s a load of bullshit,” he snapped. 

“You think an angel would lie to me about something like that?” Dean asked, hoping that Loki was right despite the evidence. 

“An angel?” Gabriel asked suspiciously before he heard a voice in his head. ‘You have to tell them what you are or you could lose him.’

Sariel was on the verge of panic. She should have thought of this possibility. She should have known that Castiel wouldn’t give up and if he couldn’t get to Sam and Gabriel he would go through those close to them. She knew she shouldn’t have talked to Gabriel in his head. She knew that it would bring far more questions than she could answer, but she couldn’t let this happen. Not now. She immediately heard an answer in her own head. ‘Who are you and what do you know?’

‘I can’t tell you that. Not yet. You know the penalties for tampering with time like the angel in question is doing. I’m here to stop him. You can’t lose Sam. No matter what. You have to tell them everything. You know you can erase the info from their minds if they react badly,’ she replied. 

‘You WILL explain as much as you can later,’ he shot back before he asked Dean, “I’m guessing the sight of its wings would be the only thing that would get you to believe that it was an angel, so how many did it have?”

“How many what? Wings?” Dean asked confused. “Why does it matter?” 

“It matters, Dean. I’ll tell you why after you answer my question,” Gabriel promised. 

“He had two of course,” Dean said as though it should be obvious, and didn’t understand why Loki breathed a sigh of relief at that. 

“Well I’ll tell you how I know that he’s full of shit,” Gabriel said rolling his shoulders and allowing his own six wings to shadow the wall, wrapping around most of the room. “Because I wasn’t always Loki. I used to be Gabriel.”

“Gabriel…the archangel,” Sam asked wide-eyed.

“The one and only,” Gabriel said with a smirk. “I’ve been notified that there is a seraph trying to interfere with the timeline by messing with us. I don’t have much information yet, but I promise you’ll know everything I do as soon as I know it. For some reason, he apparently doesn’t want Sam and I together, but I assure you, his soul is in safe hands.”

“Why wouldn’t you tell me?” Sam asked, hurt that he wasn’t trusted with something so important about his lover. 

“Because it’s a huge secret. Pretty much the biggest I have. It’s a long story, but I can give you the cliff notes version if you want?” Gabriel offered, unable to stomach Sam looking at him in betrayal. When Sam nodded, he started his story. “Our father, God to you, abandoned heaven not long after Lucifer, his favorite darling, fell and everything fell apart. None of the seraphs knew, but us remaining archangels were left to fight it out amongst ourselves. Michael, who is in charge now, is cold and ruthless. He had visions of heaven as a vast army rather than a loving family like I wanted. Raphael, the other archangel, was on Michaels side. He is cruel and calculating. He is about as close to evil as an angel could ever be, so I was outnumbered. When I refused to fall into line, they had me tortured…for centuries…before I managed to fake my death and make a run for it. I’ve been hiding as Loki ever since. You two are the first people to ever know who or what I am in all of history. That’s how big this secret is.”

“Were you ever going to tell me?” Sam asked. The answer to that question would decide their fate. 

“Of course, I was. Assuming all continued going well with us, obviously, I would have told you. Your brother, I’m not so sure, but you would always have had a right to know before any real commitments were made in this,” Gabriel assured him. 

Sam nodded. That made sense. As much as they loved each other, this relationship was barely over a month old. It was a little soon to be sharing deepest darkest secrets. “Good enough. So, some angel is trying to keep us apart? Why?” 

“I have a few ideas,” Gabriel told him. “You and your brother are from some very special bloodlines. Bloodlines that they have been manipulating since the beginning to get here. You two are the culmination of all their hard work, and they want to use you in the future. They probably think that a pagan god would never step aside and allow his mate to be manipulated in their games, and they’d be right about that. I have no intention of allowing them to use either of you.”

“Use us for what?” Dean asked. 

“To start the apocalypse. To complete our father’s final plan for this world, ahead of schedule,” Gabriel told them. 

Sariel was still watching and she knew that wasn’t actually the reason, but it was far easier for them to think that, at least for now, so she decided to let them. Now that the crisis had been averted, she was free to consider the upcoming confrontation with her father, and she knew that it would be nothing less than a confrontation.


	5. Chapter 5

Gabriel stuck around for a few more hours answering their understandable questions about heaven, the apocalypse, angels, and more before he was able to tear himself away as they went to bed. Sam often stayed the night with Gabriel, but not always. Especially not when they planned to leave for a hunt in the morning, like now. He was rather glad of that for once though as he went back to his apartment and reached out with his mind for the person who had been speaking to him before, practically demanding her presence. 

Sariel winced at the frustration she could feel from her father, but steeled herself before she appeared before him, making sure to change her appearance just a bit. She had been told often enough that she looked just like her fathers that she wasn’t going to take that chance. Not yet. He couldn’t know who or what she was at least until she was born. “Hi,” she said nervously as he narrowed his eyes at her. 

“Who are you? For that matter, what are you? I can’t get a read on you,” he asked suspiciously. 

“You can’t get a read on me because I’m muffling my signature. I can’t have anyone tracking me while I’m outside of my time. I followed the seraph, Castiel here to undo his mess, not that he’s particularly making it easy for me,” Sariel explained. 

Gabriel took that to mean that she was an angel, and knew that he wouldn’t get any more of an answer to that question so tabled it for the moment. “Okay then how about who are you? Can you tell me that?” 

“I can’t. Just knowing who I am could be enough to change the future,” she told him. 

“Then what should I call you?” he tried a different way. 

“You can call me El,” she told him. Using the last part of her name, which was shared by all angels wouldn’t give much away. Her name as a whole wouldn’t necessarily give anything away, but there was a chance, however slim, that it might spark some question, so best to leave it off. “But I really shouldn’t be here long. I need to be watching over Sam.”

“He’s fine. He knows we’re being manipulated now, so he’ll be on his guard,” Gabriel told him. 

“Yes, as long as he doesn’t modify Sam’s memory or personality once he realizes his latest gamble failed,” she pointed out. 

“You think he would go that far?” Gabriel asked suspiciously. 

“I wouldn’t put it past him. I THINK he would try a few other things before taking such a step, but I can’t really afford to take the chance to assume that.”

“Why is it so important that we stay together? Now that I love him, I would try to stop the apocalypse regardless of whether we’re together or not, so why does it matter so much?” 

“I can’t…”

“Tell me that. Yeah yeah. I know. You gotta give me something though,” Gabriel said impatiently. 

“Your relationship with Sam will have effects reaching across the universe. Your love is probably the most important thing to happen in this time period. That’s all I can say, and I shouldn’t even say that much,” she told him. 

“Well that was disturbingly vague,” Gabriel grumbled. His knowledge of the dangers of temporal displacement was warring with his curiosity, and he hated the fact that someone so mysterious knew all his secrets. 

“I am sorry,” she said sadly. “I would tell you everything if I could.”

Gabriel could tell that she was telling the truth about that much at least and that did help him to feel better. At least he was reasonably sure that she was on his side now. Then he thought of something she might be able to tell him. “Can you tell me what would have happened if Castiel had succeeded? I’m guessing you know.”

“I know the next ten years. I came back before the changes set any further than that, and it’s not pretty,” she told him. 

“Tell me?” he asked. 

“Let me just go check on Sam, and I’ll come back and tell you all I can,” she promised and he nodded. She was back only a few minutes later and began the story. “The first point he tried to affect, which I prevented, was influencing him to leave with his brother that night you met instead of staying to ask you out. That act led to him not knowing you well enough to insist on hearing you out and he and his brother staked a clone of you at the college a few days later. Because of that, when the demons kidnapped Sam a few months later, he didn’t have you to call for help and he was killed. Dean sold his soul to bring him back and got a year. During that year, you tried to interfere again, to get Sam to let go of Dean and learn to live without him, but it didn’t work and you just made him hate you in the process. Dean went to hell, broke the first seal and then Sam let himself be perfectly manipulated to break the last and Lucifer went free.”

“So the apolcalypse happened then,” Gabriel said sadly, feeling the weight of failure on his shoulders despite the fact that he was on track to change that. 

“Not exactly. You stepped in again, once they realized what was going on and you helped them figure out how to get Lucifer back in the cage. Unfortunately, you died in the process. You got between Lucifer and Sam to give him a chance to get away. You didn’t die for nothing though. They succeeded in getting Lucifer locked away again, and as a bonus, Michael joined him. Sadly, Sam spent the next almost two centuries in hell with him, having been dragged along for the ride before Dean managed to talk Death into rescuing him.”

“Where was Castiel in all this?” Gabriel asked. 

“Dean steadfastly refused to be Michael’s vessel, so Castiel helped him get to Sam to keep Sam from saying yes to Lucifer too. The last thing they wanted was for the devil to have his true vessel while Michael was stuck. From that point on, Castiel pretended to fall while playing both sides. He was Michael’s right hand and his window into the Winchesters. He ‘rescued’ them a few times when they were being tortured by angels. That was so that he could gain more of their trust and Michael knew that torture would never work on them anyway, so it was a win/win. He kept Michael informed and kept Sam saying no until Dean was ready to say yes.”

“Okay, so Michael and Lucifer are both in the cage, I bet that didn’t go over well,” Gabriel said, trying to get back to the story. 

“You can say that again,” she said. “Castiel felt, as Michael’s right hand, that he should rule in his stead. He knew that Michael never intended to let Raphael have unfettered control. It would be a disaster, so he fought him. A full civil war started in heaven and spilled over to the earth. Naturally, as a seraph, Castiel wasn’t doing so great on his own, so he decided to find a means to an end. He managed to crack open purgatory for the power of the souls and killed Raphael, followed by all who stood against him. Thousands of angels died in that purge.”

“But there are more than souls in purgatory!” Gabriel said alarmed. 

“Yes. There were. And the Leviathan were released in the world. Castiel lost his memory for a while after that incident and Sam and Dean were running around trying to find a way to defeat the leviathan. By the time Castiel got his memory back, they had the beginnings of a plan and he and Dean managed to get themselves sucked into purgatory while executing it, but at least it worked. It was a year before Dean found his way out and then Castiel was pulled out by the angel that had taken over heaven in the absence of both of their leaders and she brainwashed him to serve her. Meanwhile Sam decides to undergo the trials to seal the gates of hell…”

“But that would kill him!” Gabriel exclaimed. 

“Yeah. It would. But it was aborted at the last second and Dean tricked Sam into letting another angel use him as a vessel to heal him from the damage from the inside out, but I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. While Sam was undergoing the trials, they managed to run across the scribe…”

“Oh crap. He was excommunicated for a reason.”

“Quite. He managed to convince Castiel that he could get him back to his rightful place leading heaven, he just needed a few things in the process. He tricked Castiel into closing the gates of heaven and all the angels fell. Thousands died, those that didn’t were trapped on earth without their wings or any idea where to go or what to do. It was chaos and thousands of humans died in the process as well, whether from angels trying to take unsuitable vessels or battles between different factions of angels killing each other or whatever else. Castiel started rounding them up to create his own army to take heaven back from Metatron, who had his own way up there, courtesy of the angel tablet.”

“I told dad that was a bad idea,” Gabriel grumbled. 

“And you were right,” Sariel told him. “He used that to manipulate events right where he wanted them. Unfortunately, there were a few things he couldn’t account for. Such as Dean taking the Mark of Cain to take out Abaddon who found her way back, and then using it against him. He managed to kill Metatron, but died in the process and came back as a demon. By this time, the other angels had figured out what a tool Castiel was and rebelled against him, so he stuck with Sam trying to cure Dean and use them somehow to regain his place. That led to Sam finding the book of the damned to remove the mark from his brother and releasing Amara in the process. Then the idiots went straight to the cage to let Lucifer out to help them fight her. God had to come back to clean up that little mess and took off with Amara, but left Lucifer free. He had just taken over heaven when I had enough and came back to fix it.”

Gabriel let his head fall into his hands at that. “I can’t believe one little seraph managed to do that much damage,” he moaned. 

“Well I’ve been thinking about that and I don’t know that he did. Not directly anyway,” she told him. 

Gabriel looked up thoughtful. “You’re thinking about the paradox effect?” he asked considering it from that point of view. 

“Exactly. The world knows that it’s not right and spirals out of control in protest.”

“Makes sense. There’s no way one little seraph alone would be able to manufacture that many potential world-destroying events in so little time. It says a lot about Sam and Dean that they actually managed to avoid the worst of all those situations against those kinds of odds,” he said with pride. He was still having trouble wrapping his head around the fact that all this was avoided by the simple act of him loving Sam though, but that was the way things worked. One tiny thread could unweave the entire tapestry. 

“Now you see why I have to make sure that time stays on track,” she said pointedly, looking at her watch. 

“Yeah. I get it. Go watch over Sam. I’ll probably do the same,” he told her. 

“You won’t be able to sense Castiel. He’s found a way to block himself from your sight. I’ve only managed to undo it enough for myself that I can sense him when he’s nearby even,” she warned him. 

“I’ll keep that in mind. Does Castiel know who and what I am?” Gabriel asked and then cursed when Sariel nodded. “Okay. Thank you El. Will I see you again?” 

“Maybe,” she said cryptically before she disappeared.


	6. Chapter 6

There were a few other attempts by Castiel to interfere over the next few months, but between Sariel’s vigilance and Sam, Gabriel, and Dean all being on their guard, they all failed. Sariel though, was caught off guard though when Gabriel asked Sam to bond with him. It was too soon. She lost herself in thought as they discussed the matter trying to figure out if it would hurt anything. She would be born almost a year sooner, but other than that, there wouldn’t be any big changes that she could see. It was all going to happen anyway. It was just moving up the timetable a bit and given that Castiel was still buzzing around trying to make trouble, it would protect them in ways that she couldn’t, so it just might be a good thing. She decided to sit back and let them work it out as they would without her interference. She knew that if she went to Gabriel and told him he had to wait he would and not be too much of a pain about it, but she saw no need to do so. In fact, it could even cause more problems. This was the real danger of temporal manipulation. There were too many strings to keep track of, especially when you had two people working it from cross-purposes. 

She tuned back into the conversation in time to see Sam accept and jump into Gabriel’s arms, kissing him deeply and she flew off to monitor from a distance. About an hour later she felt a little shiver through her body and she knew that it was her own conception. It was either the fact that her existence was now assured or the changes to make her a year older or a combination of the two, but she knew then that she had succeeded. She would still stay close anyway. Just in case. There was no need to get cocky now. Especially since she didn’t know what would happen for the next nine months. Neither of her fathers ever spoke of the pregnancy and very little of her birth, so she was very much in the dark. 

Sam and Gabriel woke up the next morning feeling like they were on cloud nine. Neither of them could have ever imagined the feeling of being eternally bonded. It was a constant level of intimacy that brought them so much closer. Sam even called Dean and told him that he was taking a few days of vacation, and they spent much of that time wrapped up together. After that, Sam spent nearly every night with Gabriel, only the most serious of situations had him staying with Dean overnight and it was a few months before something changed. 

Gabriel didn’t know what was wrong with him. About a month ago, he started feeling sick to his stomach regularly. Even vomiting from time to time, and his eating habits were going nuts. He’d actually eaten a salad last week. A SALAD! What the hell was wrong with him? It wasn’t until just over three months after he and Sam had bonded that he felt the new presence inhabiting his body and he panicked. He managed to keep his game face on long enough to tell Sam that he would be gone for a while and send him back to his brother before he disappeared and fell apart. 

How could this happen? This was a nightmare! He knew what he had to do, and it would be the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life, but he couldn’t allow a Nephilim to exist. Even if he did, heaven wouldn’t. They would empty every angel in an attempt to destroy both him and their child and Sam in the process due to their bond. If his child had to die, it would be kindly and humanely by his hand, hopefully before heaven managed to sense it. He would have to be quick. It would only be minutes after the birth before they would be on top of him. Maybe he could buy a little more time by giving birth in a closed dimension…Oh crap…the birth! He wouldn’t be able to do it on his own. Someone would have to help him. He would have to tell Sam anyway. He really shouldn’t keep it a secret forever, regardless. He would wait until the last minute at least. There was no reason to give Sam time to get attached. His own heartbreak would be bad enough. He just hoped Sam would understand what he had to do and this wouldn’t tear them apart. 

Sariel watched, confused as her papa shut himself away for the next six months. He didn’t see Sam, though he did call him once a week, but wouldn’t go back and wouldn’t tell him why. He was an emotional mess and Sam wasn’t much better. Her Daddy cried himself to sleep every night and wondered why his husband had abandoned him. Even their phone calls started tending more towards arguing about Gabriel’s absence than any kind of love. She didn’t know what to do. She was wondering if this was normal…if it was supposed to be happening. Maybe that’s why neither of them would ever talk about the pregnancy. It wasn’t until about two months before she was due to be born that she realized where Gabriel’s head was when he was wandering around his Hong Kong apartment muttering about what he would have to do and the best way to do it to cause her no pain when he killed her and she immediately gave up her watch and disappeared. 

Sariel found herself sitting invisible on top of Mt. Everest as she fell apart. Her papa was going to kill her as soon as she was born. He didn’t want her. He…he hated her. She had ruined his life. How was she supposed to live with this? How could she go on with this knowledge. No wonder no one talked about it. Sam must have changed his mind somehow, but it didn’t matter. Not anymore. Not now that she knew how he really felt. She flashed back to all the times her papa had taken care of her. The way he had rocked her to sleep and sang her songs when she was little. The way he always had time to talk to her and give her advice. The way he always assured her that no matter what he loved her and that she was his entire world and he couldn’t imagine his life without her and it was all a lie. 

She realized that she wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for the fact that it was impossible for him to harm her while she was still a part of him. His own grace would protect her from everything, even him. If that wasn’t the case, she was sure that her daddy wouldn’t even have a chance to talk him out of what he was planning. She wasn’t sure how long she sat there sobbing having no way to know how time was passing outside of her little bubble but eventually she pulled herself up and went back to the real world. She would make sure she existed. If her Daddy didn’t talk Gabriel out of killing her, then she would. No matter what.


	7. Chapter 7

Sariel reentered the world with new determination, and more than a bit of anger. This time, she kept a closer watch on Gabriel, only checking in on Sam every so often instead of the reverse. She wasn’t going to take the chance of him finding another way that didn’t involve Sam. It was only a few days after she was back when she noticed Gabriel bend over with a cry, clutching his distended stomach. She followed along as he flew to Sam and then took them both into an alternate dimension that she recognized as the home where they lived when she was little. 

Sam staggered a bit, surprised at the sudden flight and then he turned around to get a look at Gabriel and gasped as he noticed his stomach. “Gabriel! What…How…When…Why…”

“I’ll try to explain. I don’t know how this happened. It shouldn’t have been possible, but it did happen and now I don’t…don’t have a choice…I have to…” he broke down in tears even as another contraction wracked over him. 

“You have to what, Gabriel?” Sam asked, putting aside his anger at his husband disappearing for so long and not telling him about something this big for the moment. They could fight later. He needed to get him through this. 

“This baby…it’s a Nephilim. They are so far forbidden that they aren’t even spoken of anymore. As soon as it’s born heaven will sense it and every angel in heaven, including the archangels will descend on us to kill us all. I have to…to kill it…before they can,” Gabriel sobbed. 

“No! You can’t!” Sam protested. 

“You think I want to? The very idea of it is killing me! But this baby is going to die either way. Either slowly and painfully at the hands of my brothers or quick and painless by mine. And if my brothers get involved they won’t stop with the baby. They will destroy both of us too. There is no other way,” Gabriel protested. “I’m sorry, Sam. I’m so so sorry.”

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” Sam asked, starting to forget his idea of waiting to argue. 

“Because I didn’t want you to have time to get attached like I have. I didn’t want to break your heart any more than I had to. I don’t ever want you to feel what I’ve been feeling the last six months.”

“Why now? Why not after it’s done? Why give me a chance to see it at all?” Sam asked, finally understanding what Gabriel must have been going through all this time, and redoubling his effort to save all this for later. 

“Because I can’t do this on my own, and I can’t let anyone else know about it either,” Gabriel told him, doubling over with another contraction. He knew that he was running out of time. “I’m going to have to cut my stomach open to get to the baby. I’m going to need you to take it out and cut the cord. Then I’ll…I’ll…do what I have to do.”

Sam nodded, feeling the bile filling his mouth, but refusing to consider any of this right now as he helped Gabriel lie down. He hated every second of this, but he knew that Gabriel had a point. They didn’t have a choice. 

Sariel watched on in shock as Sam stopped arguing. Maybe he was just trying to keep Gabriel calm right now. Maybe he was saving his argument for when they had time for it, but no. She could see the detached way he was dealing with the situation and how sick he looked. He was actually going to go through with it. Well she sure as hell wasn’t going to let it happen. She would give them as long as she could to change their minds but if they forced her hand then she would take her baby self and run. Maybe these were the consequences of moving up the timeline. 

Gabriel reached down and created a slice along his lower abdomen and Sam reached in and found the baby, pulled it out, and cut the cord without ever looking at it, handing it to Gabriel as the archangel’s stomach was already healing. He turned away, unable to watch and screwed his eyes shut against the tears that were threatening to fall. 

Gabriel took the baby and looked down, hand already poised to deliver the killing blow, but his breath caught in his throat and his hand froze. The next second a sob broke from his throat and he cradled her close to him as he broke down. “I can’t,” he gasped out. “I can’t do it.” 

Sam took a few deep steadying breaths before he turned around. “Gabriel?” he asked worriedly as he saw his husband clutching the tiny squirming baby to his chest, her own cries nearly drowning out Gabriel’s. 

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I can’t…I won’t…She’s…she’s,” Gabriel couldn’t form any more words. 

Sam walked over and sat down on the bed next to his husband and pulling him tightly against his side, finally getting the first look at his daughter’s face. “Then don’t,” Sam said firmly, reaching out to brush a finger down her feather soft cheek. “Don’t. We’ll find a way. Somehow. And even if we don’t…I can’t think of anything more worth dying for,” he whispered not taking his eyes off of his daughter. Gabriel nodded, burying his face in his husband’s neck as the tears slowed down to a manageable level. They would find a way. They had to. “Sleep, Gabriel. We’ll figure it out when you wake up,” Sam promised, seeing how exhausted the archangel was. 

“No. Not yet. I need to throw up some more wards around this dimension first or we won’t last that long,” Gabriel said dragging himself out of bed, but before he got all the way there he stiffened. “There’s someone else here,” he said dangerously, handing the baby quickly to Sam and drawing his blade in the same breath. He reached out with his senses realizing that he couldn’t get a read on what it was. He’d only ever experienced that once before. “If that’s you El, you better show yourself,” he warned coldly. 

She appeared in front of him, across the room. Not close enough to be deemed a threat and he brandished his blade towards her. “I won’t let you touch her. She’s mine and I will kill you if I have to. Damn the timeline, damn heaven, damn anyone who comes after her,” he snarled defensively. 

Sariel couldn’t help the small smile that blossomed on her face at that. Her first in months. It seemed that all wasn’t as lost as she imagined. She knew it would take a long time for those wounds to heal, but this moment here made them hurt a lot less. “I’m not here to harm her. Or you,” she assured him. 

“How can I be sure of that?” Gabriel asked suspiciously, narrowing his eyes at her. 

Her smile widened, and she knew that it would do no harm for him to know now and she dropped her shielding, allowing him to sense her completely. She knew when he figured it out because his jaw dropped, and his blade clattered to the ground. “Gabriel?” Sam asked worriedly, tightening his grip on his daughter. He didn’t know what this woman had done to his husband. 

“You’re…her…she’s…but…” Gabriel stammered looking between her and the baby. There was no doubt about it. Their signatures were exactly the same. There was no other way but for them to be the same person. 

Sariel nodded, and Sam couldn’t keep quiet anymore. “Can someone please tell me what the hell is going on?” 

“She’s…her!” Gabriel said pointing from ‘El’ to the baby. 

“So, our time traveling helper is actually our daughter from the future?” Sam asked dumbfounded as he tried to wrap his head around that. He got a nod from the woman in question whose features morphed into a perfect combination of Sam and Gabriel. “Then that means we do find a way,” Sam said with a relieved sigh. 

Gabriel hadn’t quite gotten that far in his thinking, but Sam grabbed his arm and spun him around, happy grin on his face. “Gabriel…we find a way!” he said cheerfully, barely keeping himself from bursting into song. 

“Huh?” Gabriel said inelegantly. 

“Look. She’s standing there whole and grown. That means she lives that long. That we find a way to protect her,” Sam tried to spell it out for him and he knew Gabriel got it when the archangel let out a happy whoop and nearly tackled him halfway between crying and laughing, prompting Sam to do the same. She watched them for a minute before Sam turned to look at her. “What’s your name?” he asked looking between her and the baby. 

“Sariel,” she told him. She saw no point in not. They would obviously come across it on their own at some point and she rather liked her name so she didn’t really want to end up with a different one if they didn’t. 

“Sariel,” Sam said looking back down at the baby in his arms for a moment before letting Gabriel take her back. “Weren’t you going to do something with the wards?” Sam reminded him. 

“Crap!” Gabriel said, aborting his transfer of the baby and leaving her in Sam’s arms before he stood there waving his hands in the air for a few minutes in what seemed to Sam like random patterns until he stumbled. Sariel got to him first and helped him into the bed before snapping up some basic baby things for Sam and disappearing. Neither of them saw her add her own wards to Gabriel’s. She was more than familiar with the wards around her childhood home and saw no problem with adding the ones that Gabriel would have added in a few hours anyway.


	8. Chapter 8

When Gabriel woke up a few hours later, he smothered his laughter at the sight that met him. A frazzled Sam was trying to burp the newborn, who didn’t seem to much like the idea, but the funniest part was the fact that she had a diaper on backwards and a blanket wrapped rather haphazardly around her. Gabriel settled for a look of fond exasperation and reached out for his daughter and Sam gratefully handed her over. Gabriel burped her expertly before lying her down, putting a new diaper on her, grabbing the rumpled outfit that Sam had obviously tried and failed to put on her and once she was dressed, he swaddled her tightly in the blanket and just sat there holding her and staring at her face. 

“How did you do that?” Sam asked in awe. 

Gabriel couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “I’ve been around for a long time, Samshine. I’ve handled my share of babies. You’ll get the hang of it. Don’t worry.”

Sam just grumbled at that. “I just hope future Sariel wasn’t watching my clumsiness.” At Sam’s words, Gabriel’s eyes widened, and all color drained from his face. “Gabe? What’s wrong?” he asked worriedly. 

“Future Sariel…she’s been watching over us since we got together…”

“Yeah. You mentioned that,” Sam said wondering where he was going with this. 

“She was watching…she knew we were going to…she…she probably saw it all…oh god, I’m gonna be sick,” Gabriel handed Sariel off to his husband and scrambled for the bathroom, emptying his stomach in the toilet, leaving a shell-shocked hunter sitting on the bed, not feeling much better about the situation as he realized what Gabriel was getting at. Thankfully, the baby in his arms had already dozed off after her dinner and was thus oblivious to all the turmoil in her parents. 

When Gabriel pulled himself out of the bathroom a few minutes later he snapped his fingers and created a crib next to the bed, and Sam laid her down before pulling Gabriel into his arms. “What are we gonna do, Gabriel?” He knew they had a lot of issues of their own to work out, but this seemed rather more important than them. He knew that he just kept putting off the argument he needed to have with his husband, but it was necessary in this situation. 

“Sariel?” Gabriel said to the room. “Are you here?” he asked hopefully. When he didn’t get a response, he tried again. “Please come talk to us, baby?” 

“Don’t call me that,” she said evenly. She may have felt a little better about things after seeing her father willing to fight to protect her, but not well enough to be his little girl again. Not yet. 

“Were you watching…” Gabriel couldn’t quite figure out how to word it, but he apparently didn’t need to. 

“I saw it all,” she said emotionlessly, and Gabriel lost the little bit of color that he had gotten back. 

“I’m not going to try and justify anything, because there is no justification for it, but please just let me explain?” Gabriel begged. 

“I’m listening,” she said, crossing her arms and looking at him. 

“The very first law my father ever laid down, the highest law of all of heaven, was the one against Nephilim. If a Nephilim were ever born, the full might of heaven destroyed the child and both parents to ensure it never happened again, and it wasn’t a slow death either. It was used to make an example. We were taught from the second we were created that Nephilim were dangerous, unstable, that they were a threat to the entire universe. Only three times in all of time were Nephilim born and all three times they were slaughtered immediately. No quarter given. It’s something so unthinkable to us angels and so ingrained into our very being that thinking about it rationally is all but impossible. It nearly destroyed me to even consider killing you when you were just an abstract concept. You had to have seen how much the very idea tore me apart. The second you were real…the second I held you in my arms and saw your face…there was no chance of me ever going through with it, no matter the consequences. I’m not asking for your forgiveness because I don’t deserve it, but I am asking you to give me a chance to make it up to you. Please.”

Sariel deflated quite a bit at her father’s explanation, but that didn’t make it go away. “I don’t know how I feel about this. I know that what you say makes sense. I saw you struggling with the idea and how much it hurt you. I saw your abrupt change of heart when I was born, but it can’t make the hurt go away. I will say this though. It’s not me you need to make it up to. It’s her,” she pointed at the baby. “I’m not sure if she’ll get my memories when time catches back up to itself, but part of me hopes she doesn’t.”

“Okay. I understand,” Gabriel said solemnly, knowing that was about the best response he could expect. 

Sam couldn’t stand to see Gabriel so sad. Especially when he had his own bone to pick with him later, so he decided to try and give him something that would make him feel at least a little better. Plus, he needed to explain his part too. “I don’t have any such explanations for my part in it. All I can say is that I was completely blindsided by the whole thing and I didn’t even have a chance to process it. I know it can never make up for it, but I will spend the rest of forever trying to,” Sam vowed. “Will you still be around?” he asked hopefully. 

“No. You’ll be fine on your own from here. You are fully out of Castiel’s reach now,” she told them. He might still make some attempts at manipulation, but the bond protected Sam’s mind from alteration and he wouldn’t be back in the real world all that much. 

“Okay. That’s fine. Do you think…maybe…we could at least get a hug before you go?” Sam asked longingly. 

She hesitated for a minute before a slight smile twitched onto her face and she stepped over and held out her arms. Sam wasted no time in grabbing the offered hug and holding on for dear life. “Never doubt that I love you, Sariel. With everything I have.”

“No matter what differences we may have, I’ll always love you, Dad,” she whispered softly in his ear, feeling his arms tighten slightly around her before he let go. 

Gabriel still hadn’t moved from his spot sitting on the bed, staring at the floor. Sariel was no more immune to Sam to her papa’s despondency and she stepped over and put a hand on his shoulder. When he looked up at her she pulled him to his feet and into a warm hug. “I’ll always love you, papa. No matter what,” she whispered and he held her tighter, tears falling on her neck.

“I love you, Sari. Always and forever. With my entire being,” he sniffled. When he finally let her go a moment later, not wanting to push his luck too much, she disappeared, and Sam took her place, holding Gabriel close. 

Once Gabriel was a little calmer he took a step back. “Okay, Sam. I know you’ve been holding your tongue for a while now. Let me have it,” he said defeated. 

“No, Gabriel. Not today. You’ve had enough shit piled on for the day. We’re going to lay down and go to bed and we’ll talk about us tomorrow,” Sam said gently, pulling him over to the bed. 

“Just…there is still an us, right?” Gabriel asked, hating the vulnerability in that question. 

Sam pulled him in for a soft, loving kiss. “There will always be an us, Gabe,” Sam promised and Gabriel breathed a sigh of relief as he let Sam put him into bed and the hunter quickly climbed in next to him. 

“I love you, Sam,” Gabriel said weakly. 

“I love you too, Gabriel. No matter what,” Sam said pulling his husband close as they went to sleep together for the first time in six months. The fact that Sam was sleeping peacefully for the first time in all that time was offset by being woken up every few hours by a hungry baby. He and Gabriel quickly worked out a system of taking turns, and since Gabriel had a nap earlier in the day, he took the first one. The third time she woke up, Gabriel’s second turn, Sam soon noticed that Gabriel hadn’t come back to bed. Sam rolled over to see his husband sitting there in a snapped up rocking chair, just gazing at their sleeping daughter with silent tears running down his face.


	9. Chapter 9

Sam slowly pulled himself out of bed and made his way to the bathroom, stopping to drop a kiss on Gabriel and Sariel’s heads on the way. He took a nice long shower while he got his thoughts together before he stepped back out to see Gabriel setting Sariel back in her crib. “Are there any other rooms to this house?” Sam asked curiously, not really wanting to have this conversation in the same room as his daughter for fear that she might pick up on the tension. He doubted there would be any yelling, but he wasn’t going to rule it out. 

Gabriel nodded and led him into the next room which happened to be a living room. “This is all there is so far. I figure we can add onto it once we decide what we want and how we want it organized.” 

“Fair enough,” Sam told him. He figured part of the plan for protecting Sariel would involve keeping her in this dimension but that was a conversation for later. Before he managed to say anything else though, his phone rang. He had completely forgotten about his brother. After assuring Dean that he was okay and he’d talk to him in a couple days, he turned back to Gabriel who appeared to be waiting for the axe to fall. “We were bonded, Gabriel. BONDED. As you explained that to me it’s a few steps above a marriage. Only three months after that you left. You didn’t tell me where you were, what was going on with you, anything. You were gone for six months. Do you have any idea what I went through in that time?” Sam asked heart-brokenly. 

“I wasn’t exactly in the best shape either,” Gabriel tried to point out. 

“I don’t care. We should have dealt with it together. The pregnancy, your fears, all of it. I get what you said about not wanting me to have a chance to get attached, but that doesn’t excuse it. Not at all. Instead you showed up just as you’re giving birth to a baby I knew nothing about and practically ordered me to hand my daughter over for death. You really think that was any better? We are supposed to be handling these things together and you completely shut me out and I had every right to be involved. YOU made the decision to take me out of the equation, and didn’t even give me a choice.”

“So you wanted me to make you spend six months in pain and fear and helplessness along with me?” Gabriel asked incredulously. 

“Yes, damnit, Gabriel! It was my RIGHT! We were supposed to be in this together. By each other’s sides, come what may. Isn’t that what we promised each other? Then the first time something big comes up, you run away and shut me out? That’s not the way this is supposed to work!” Sam was starting to lose his temper now. 

Gabriel blinked at the hunter’s temper and forced himself to listen to the words and put that way, he could see Sam’s point. He could see how badly he screwed up now. “You’re right, Sam,” Gabriel said softly. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking of it that way. I was thinking that I screwed up royally by allowing it to happen in the first place and the least I could do was save you the same agony that I was going through, but instead I screwed up again. Seems to be all I’m good at anymore,” Gabriel sat back and hugged his knees to his chest. He wasn’t usually one for a pity party, but so much had been coming at him so fast the last two days and he was still more than a little emotional from the pregnancy and giving birth, so it wasn’t surprising that it was all hitting him now. 

Sam let out a heavy breath as he felt his anger evaporate and he sat back down next to Gabriel. “Yes, you’ve made some crappy decisions, but nothing is so bad it can’t be fixed,” he assured him, reaching out a hand to tuck a lock of hair behind Gabriel’s ear. “Just swear to me that you will never do that again. Never shut me out. Never run away. Let me be your partner like you promised when we bonded, okay?” 

“I swear,” Gabriel said shakily, and Sam relaxed the rest of the way and reached over and pulled Gabriel into an embrace. 

“Good. Now I think we have some plans to make, or do you want some time to relax first?” 

“I think I’d rather get the plans out of the way or it’ll drive me crazy,” Gabriel told him. “First thing is that we won’t be able to leave this dimension. Or at least both of us won’t at any given time and Sariel most definitely can’t ever. One foot back in the real world and heaven will sense her in an instant.”

“Okay. So as far as this dimension goes…how big can you make it? What kind of options do we have for things to do? We’ll get rather stir crazy if we just have the house after all.”

“Oh I can make it as big as a city. Probably bigger, but that would be quite a drain on my powers. There’s really no limit on stuff to do either. I can have everything from a nature park to an amusement park, pools, ocean, botanical gardens, zoo, you name it. The main problem is going to be that I can’t create people. She will never know anyone other than the two of us or Dean and Bobby if they come to visit. She will never have a playmate or know other children at all. She will be completely isolated here forever,” Gabriel said sadly. 

“Then we’ll just have to make sure that we make up for that isolation as much as we can. Now is there anyway that humans can travel back and forth from here? That way Dean and Bobby can visit often and I can come and go too?” 

“Yeah. I can get them keys and bind them to their dna so no one else can get ahold of them and use them,” Gabriel offered. 

“Ok great. So as long as at least one of us is in this dimension at all times with Sariel, we’ll be okay,” Sam told him. “Any other concerns there?” 

“No, that all sounds good. Now we just need to figure out what we’re going to have here,” Gabriel told him. 

“Well as far as the house, I say our room, a connected nursery, the living room and kitchen, maybe a game room and a pool out back. Oh, and a library. Especially since we’re gonna have to be her teachers when she gets older too. 

“I also want at least a small ballroom. I’d like to teach her how to dance. And we can always set it up for indoor sports too,” Gabriel suggested. 

“That sounds good,” Sam said. “And for outside the immediate area, for now I’d just say a nature/kiddie park with walking trails too. That’ll give us someplace to take her other than the yard for fresh air and some exercise for us.”

“Maybe a water park too?” Gabriel suggested and Sam nodded. 

“Oh and a beach. It might be nice to take her to a beach. Since you mentioned a zoo, I’m guessing you can create animals?” 

“Yeah. Animals are easy. They don’t have souls to make things all murky,” Gabriel told him. 

“Okay great. So maybe when she’s a little older we can get some horses to ride and maybe a puppy. We can still have a nice life here, even if it is limited,” Sam told him. 

“Yeah. I like that idea,” Gabriel said leaning into his husband’s side. “And after meeting her as an adult I’m a lot less worried about the dangerous instability issues that my father warned about with Nephilim, though her power is going to be more than a little hard to handle since she’s a whole lot more powerful than even I am, but we’ll manage.”

“How does that work? Her being more powerful than you when I don’t have powers at all,” Sam asked. 

“A human soul is like a giant super-battery for angel grace and she has both so they feed on each other amplifying her power exponentially. Nephilim are the only beings that can rival my father in powers and with me being an archangel to start with…”

“Oh. Wow. I guess that makes sense. So basically you’re saying that our daughter is the most powerful being in the universe?” 

“Exactly,” Gabriel said. “It’s more than a little scary to be honest.”

“Yeah. It is. But we’ll figure it out as we go along. Parenting is always scary anyway,” Sam pointed out. “We just have our own unique set of challenges.”


	10. Chapter 10

The rest of the day was spent with Sam and Gabriel designing their house, though Gabriel was doing most of the work of course. The bedroom, nursery, library, and one bathroom ended up upstairs while the living room, kitchen, and ballroom was downstairs with a game room in the basement. Gabriel got a large pool, with a kiddie end and a connected hot tub created outside, and Sam helped him design the park too. That wouldn’t be built until tomorrow. Gabriel was more than a little knackered after the whole house. Especially with the breaks to take care of Sariel when she woke up. On the plus side, now that the nursery was finished, they could put her to bed there and Sam immediately dragged his husband to bed. He’d been without him for six months, after all, and they both fell asleep soon after they were sated. 

Gabriel woke to the sound of a crying baby a couple hours later and groaned as he got out of bed. He would be glad when the majority of the building had been done, at least for this stage, and he wouldn’t be wearing himself out enough to need to sleep. As it was, he was grateful to future Sariel for putting up the rest of the wards, even if there were some he had no idea how they worked. Once he had a little time, he would be doing some research into them and figure them out. He would guess that he had in the original timeline anyway. As adamant as she had been about preserving things, he assumed that she only added the wards that she knew he had put here already and they were obviously enough to keep her safe.

He sat in the nursery feeding his daughter while rocking gently in the rocking chair and wondering, once again, how all this happened. He was no closer to a conclusion by the time he had her back to sleep and was crawling into bed with Sam. The next morning, he built the agreed upon play park and made a quick trip to grab hairs from Dean and Bobby to make the keys for them to come and go. By lunchtime, he was resting quietly on the couch, his daughter in his arms and all that he had set for himself for the day was done. Now that the house was done, he didn’t want to overdo it again, so he would do the beach tomorrow.

Sam kissed him deeply, pressed a kiss to Sariel’s head and took the key that led to his brother and headed out. No sooner than he found himself in Dean’s motel room, he was being berated. “Dude, you can’t just disappear like that without a word. I thought you’d been kidnapped or something.”

“Sorry, Dean. It’s kind of a long story and I’d rather only tell it once. I still wanna get Bobby too,” he said as he handed over a key. “Give me five minutes and then put this in any door and walk through. Keep a good hold of it though,” Sam told him. 

“What is this?” Dean asked confusedly. 

“It’s a key to mine and Gabriel’s new home. We’ll explain everything there.” Dean reluctantly nodded, so Sam took his own key and headed back home to go from there to Bobby. After another brief explanation he brought Bobby back with him and no sooner than Bobby got a look at the baby and gasped in shock, Dean was stepping through. Seeing that both of them were rather dumbfounded, Sam decided to take control of the situation. “Okay, I promised explanations so if you two want to have a seat, I’ll explain.”

Dean and Bobby took a seat, neither taking their eyes off the baby, Dean in awe, and Bobby with nerves. He had a decent idea of what this baby meant, after all. Dean managed to shake himself out of it long enough to say, “This explanation better include why Gabriel disappeared for six months and made Sam nuts.”

Gabriel looked up at Sam apologetically for that before turning to Dean. “This is our daughter, Sariel. We don’t know how she happened, but she did. Yes, that’s why I disappeared for six months, and Sam and I have already worked out our issues from that. Long story short, she can’t leave this dimension I created so Sam and I will be living here, and you two will have to come here to visit.”

“Wow, I’ve heard of parents locking their children up in a safe little bubble, but don’t you think you’re taking it a bit far?” Dean joked. 

Bobby got it though. “It’s because she’s a Nephilim isn’t it,” he asked knowingly. 

“Yeah. One foot outside this dimension and heaven would sense her and send out all their armies and kill us all, including anyone who knows about her,” Sam said. 

“Well shit,” Dean said falling back in his chair and letting out a heavy breath. “That means you’re out of hunting then, I assume, if you’re stuck here.”

“The hunting I don’t know. I don’t like leaving you out there alone with no one to watch your back, but I’m not stuck here per se. I can still go out and stuff, as long as Gabe is here to watch Sariel. And he can still go out as long as I stay and watch her. It won’t be much different than being in the real world except we come home to another dimension.”

Dean nodded as he considered the possibilities. “Okay, how about this. I’ll handle the simple hunts alone and do most of the legwork for the more complicated ones and I’ll just come get you when I need backup, assuming this key isn’t a onetime use.”

Sam looked at Gabriel who nodded, though a little nervously. He guessed that the archangel didn’t much like the idea of Sam putting himself in danger, but worst case scenario, it only took a few second to heal him. Sari could be fine on her own for a few seconds. “That works. Just let me know, if possible, when you have a hunt you might need backup on so we can make sure Gabriel’s here for Sari.”

“You know it doesn’t always work out like that, but I’ll do my best,” Dean promised. 

“Worst case scenario, pray for me. I’ll throw an assist and take care of any heals if needed. That goes for anytime you end up in something over your head,” Gabriel offered. 

“Thanks Gabe,” Dean said. “Now let’s get back to this whole you disappearing for six months thing. Was that really necessary?” 

Gabriel looked to Sam who gave him a half shrug, meaning that he didn’t care what line of crap he spun for his brother, so he thought of an explanation off the top of his head. “We still had a time traveling seraph buzzing around and if he had seen me he would have known I was pregnant and we would have all been screwed. He only messed with Sam because he knew that I would pick up on it in a second if he did anything to me, so I had no choice but to stay away from Sam. Even talking to him on the phone was a risk, but I couldn’t stand to have no contact at all.”

“That sucks, but I get it,” Dean said with a nod. If his brother forgave the little archangel, then he would let it go. 

“So, all I know about Nephilim is what the lore says and that’s not much,” Bobby said, interjecting himself into the conversation. 

“Honestly, I don’t know much more than you do. All angels were essentially brainwashed from the moment of their creation to believe the Nephilim were evil and dangerous, and that’s all any of us knew since the few times they were born they were all killed within minutes of their birth. I have evidence now that it isn’t true, or at least not completely, so we’re all in the dark on what to expect here. All I can really tell you for sure is that she is far more powerful than I am, even now, and her powers will grow as she gets older, which means a few precautions you’ll need to be aware of while you’re around her.”

“What kind of precautions?” Dean asked. 

“What kind of evidence?” Bobby asked at the same time. 

“Remember I mentioned the time traveler that was on our side, trying to preserve the timeline? She was her. All grown up and there was nothing the slightest bit evil about her. The precautions I’m talking about though is we want to be careful what stories we tell her. No talk about monsters or anything in her presence. Imagine her getting curious as to what a werewolf is, and her mind can just create it with barely a thought and then we have a werewolf running around this dimension. No fantasy stories involving things like dragons or trolls or anything like that for the same reason. At least until she is old enough to understand a little better. That’s the main reason we won’t have a television here either. That way we have more control over the concepts she is introduced to.”

Sam hadn’t considered that angle before and he could see Gabriel’s point. He had every intention of reading her fairy tales, but he would just have to make sure that they were purged of anything she could create like that. Bobby had another question though. “But we’ll be safe with her right?” 

Gabriel smirked. “Well I can’t promise she’ll never want to play dress up or something and put you in an embarrassing situation, but I doubt she would hurt you unless you were hurting her.” 

Sam snorted in an effort to cover up his laugh at the mental image he got of Dean in a princess dress and a tiara playing tea party with a toddler, and then he realized that could be him just as easily. It didn’t take away from the humor value though. He decided to change the subject before he got himself in trouble and turned back to a previous topic before they got side-tracked. “They keys though, assuming you want to keep them can only be used by you and will return to you if you ever lose them. They are bound to you. Even if someone else is holding onto you when you use it they will be left behind. I have a key for each of you that will take me to you wherever you happen to be. That was the only way to get them to work to and from this dimension. They are bound to the people rather than the place since this place doesn’t exist on the same plane.”

“Course we wanna keep ‘em ya idjit. I, for one, plan to be around often,” Bobby told him. Now that he knew that him having the key wouldn’t put them in any more danger, he wasn’t about to give it up. Those boys were as good as his own which made this baby almost his granddaughter and he wasn’t giving that up without a fight. Dean nodded in agreement. No way was he abandoning his niece.


	11. Chapter 11

Sariel was four months old before Sam could stand to leave her for more than a few minutes at a time and he and Dean headed to Bobby’s to have a nice grown-up night. About an hour in, Sam made a comment, “It really is nice to have an evening where I don’t have to worry about getting peed on or thrown up on or pooped on.”

Bobby roared with laughter as he said, “Watch how much you let you brother drink if you want that to last.”

Dean threw a book at Bobby’s head for that comment, but couldn’t help but laugh himself. Unfortunately for them, none of them had the ability to sense the invisible seraph watching them, waiting for an opening. It wasn’t until that moment that he realized that he had failed in the mission he set himself. That the abomination was born early. There was nothing more to gain here. It was time for damage control. 

Castiel rushed to heaven and asked for an urgent audience with Michael. When he was shown in, he knelt before his eldest brother and was bidden to rise. “You are not the Castiel from this time,” Michael deduced after scrutinizing him for a moment. 

“I am not. I have come back to right a terrible wrong,” Castiel told him. 

“You are aware of the dangers of meddling in the timeline?” Michael chided. 

“I am, but this is too important not to,” Castiel told him apologetically. 

“What is it?” Michael asked. 

“There are a few parts to the information. First, Gabriel is alive. He has been hiding on earth, posing as a pagan god. Recently he has bonded with a human and they have a child,” Castiel told him. 

“A Nephilim! From an archangel!” Michael roared as he jumped to his feet. “How have we not sensed it?”

“They have spirited the infant away into a dimension of Gabriel’s creation before she was even born. I just found out about it a few minutes ago when the human parent was talking about her with his brother. I have seen what happens when she is allowed to grow up, and I cannot let it happen,” Cas told him, bowing his head and waiting for judgement. 

“We will capture this human parent. If we cannot, we will capture the brother and force our way into where they are hiding…”

“I beg your pardon, Michael, but that will not work,” Castiel said with a wince.

“Why not?” he asked dangerously. 

“I know Gabriel well from the future. He would have left no holes in the protection. Whatever way the humans have to go back and forth will only work for them, and these particular humans are disturbingly resistant to torture,” Castiel said apologetically. 

“Then what would you suggest?” Michael asked perilously. 

“I suggest watching them, following them as they go back and forth to locate the dimension that Gabriel has hidden and then take them unawares in their home,” Castiel suggested. 

“That idea has merit. It will take time, but it has the best chance of success if things are as you say. We should still be able to get to them before the Nephilim is too much of a threat,” Michael was thinking aloud now. He pulled out a notebook. “Tell me all the details you know and then get back to your own time before a paradox forms.” Cas spent the next half hour telling him all about Sam, Gabriel, Dean, and Bobby; where they lived, what they drove, how Dean travelled all the time, any patterns of their coming and going, and so on before he left the matter in the capable hands of heaven’s leader and returned to his own time. Michael was right that it took time. He just miscalculated how much time. 

The years went on for the fugitive family, none of them any the wiser of their new heavenly tails. Sariel grew up, and true to Gabriel’s prediction, often put the men in her family in mortifying positions. Sam’s mental image of Dean in a princess dress and tiara playing tea party had come true more than once, and all four of the adults had that pleasure at one time or another, often all of them at once. For her forth birthday, Gabriel created horses and they taught her how to ride. She always had a bad habit of creating toys and sweets, but since she didn’t have to worry about a specific diet or overeating or anything like that, they let it go. Occasionally one of the toys she created wouldn’t exactly be safe and they would have to put their foot down, but for the most part it was a very loose household. 

One might be forgiven to think that she was a spoiled, pampered, princess. In some ways, she certainly was, but in all the important ways she was just the opposite. Part of her freedom in creating anything she wanted depended heavily on the respect she gave others. She knew her boundaries and neither of her fathers ever hesitated to punish her for crossing them, even if they did have to get rather creative in their punishments given her power. As a result of the love and discipline she was raised with, she was turning out to be a kind, respectful, and honest young girl, even if she was rather lonely. 

It wasn’t long after her tenth birthday and the three of them were sitting down to dinner when an icy wave washed over them and the entire dimension shuddered. Gabriel’s face went white as he jumped up from the table and called his blades, tossing one to Sam as well. “The wards are down. We’ve been found,” he said fearfully as he tossed a second blade to Sam and grabbed another of his own. The house and all surroundings suddenly disappeared and they were surrounded by what had to be thousands of angels. “Stay between us, Sari,” Gabriel ordered, positioning her so that she was as protected as she could be by her fathers. 

Michael and Raphael, along with six other seraphs stepped forward and attacked. It didn’t take long before both Gabriel and Sam were on their knees with blades at their throats and two seraphs had ahold of Sariel. All three of them were struggling and Michael, who was holding Gabriel, pulled his blade from the archangel’s neck and slashed it across his cheek with a hissed, “Enough.”

Gabriel’s scream of pain was the last straw for Sariel who tensed up and screamed, “NO!” jerking her hands down and both archangels holding Sam and Gabriel and the two seraphs holding her disintegrated. Sam and Gabriel rushed over to her only to find themselves trapped in what seemed to be a large bubble and the rushing angels were falling to ash every time they touched it. Gabriel watched in horror for a moment before he managed to shake off his stupor and yelled, “STOP!” All of the angels instinctively froze. “Michael and Raphael are dead. Lucifer is still in the cage. That makes me the last archangel and you will obey me. Stand down immediately,” he ordered. Many of them didn’t want to, but they were programmed to obey the archangels and without another archangel to give them contradictory orders, they were hard pressed to disobey. All of the angels still present stepped back and formed lines, waiting for further instructions. 

Gabriel turned to Sariel and kneeled in front of her. “Sari, baby. We’re safe now. Take down the bubble please?” he asked rubbing her arms to calm her. She nodded weakly through her tears and the bubble disappeared and Sam quickly gathered her in his arms, having been afraid to touch her while she was holding that bubble up. Seeing that Sam had Sari handled, he turned to his new troops. “From now on, Nephilim are no longer forbidden. She and any future Nephilim will be treated as the children of heaven that they are. Is that understood?” Gabriel said firmly. He could see the disgust in many faces, and the relief in many others, but the majority of them showed indifference. All of them accepted the order though and he told them to leave. 

Once they were alone again, Gabriel recreated their living room. They had some decisions to make, as a family. He was not in the best of shape due to the loss of his brothers, but to show it would be to put that guilt on his baby’s shoulders and he refused. She had done what she needed to do to protect her family and no matter how badly that gutted him, he could never let her know that. Once they were seated, Sariel draped across both their laps, leaning her head on Gabriel’s shoulder, still crying slightly, he decided to address the elephant in the room first. “Sari, sweetheart. You need to know that you’re not in trouble. You didn’t do anything wrong and in fact, Daddy and I are very proud of you. We’re so sorry you had to do that, but we’re all okay thanks to you. Do you understand?” he asked gently. She nodded against his shoulder and sniffled. 

“Good. Now we need to decide what we’re going to do. Now that I’ve officially taken control of heaven, as the de-facto leader, we need to decide what this means for us and where we go from here,” Gabriel said, looking mostly to Sam, but if their daughter had any opinions or concerns he would certainly listen to them. 

“What are our options?” Sam asked curiously. 

“Option one, we do nothing, rebuild this dimension and re-ward it with the certainty that nothing and no one will be able to take them down now with the other archangels gone. Unless I formally take the throne of heaven they will be able to fight my orders off in time, so it would be necessary. Which brings us to option two. I take full control of the throne of heaven, giving us full protection anywhere in the universe and anyone working against us or my orders will automatically lose their grace and fall. You and Sariel could either come with me or live on earth or even here and I could go back and forth.”

“I think you need to take the throne. If we can come out of hiding we should. It would be better for Sariel to be able to experience life outside of this limited dimension. To know people other than Dean and Bobby. To have a chance to meet other kids even. Not to mention, if Nephilim are no longer forbidden then there can even be other kids like her. It’s too much of an opportunity to pass up.”

Gabriel sighed heavily. “I never wanted to rule. I never wanted any of this, but you’re right. I have to. For her sake. The question now is whether we will be staying in heaven as a family or whether I’ll be commuting.”

“I want to stay with you, papa,” Sariel piped up from their laps. “Please don’t send me away.”

“Oh, baby. I would never, EVER send you away. You don’t have to live in heaven with me though. I can just go to work in heaven and then come home every day to you and Daddy.”

“But in heaven I wouldn’t have to hide,” she told him. “I don’t want to have to pretend all the time.” She knew enough to know that living on earth would mean hiding her powers and playing human and she didn’t like that idea. 

“How about a compromise,” Sam suggested. “We all live in heaven, but the three of us take regular vacations on earth with Uncle Dean and Uncle Bobby since they wouldn’t be able to come visit us in heaven, and Sariel, you and I can go visit ourselves sometimes when Papa is busy. How’s that sound?” he asked them both and got twin nods in response. 

“Okay. We can do that. I just wish I knew if we were doing the right thing,” Gabriel said wearily. 

“You are,” another voice chimed in from the doorway.


	12. Chapter 12

Gabriel looked back and forth from the little girl in his arms to the young woman in the doorway and exclaimed, “Sar…um…El! You’re back!”

“El is fine to avoid confusion,” she said with a chuckle. “I never technically left. I needed to make sure everything went well. Once I went back, I couldn’t return again, so it wasn’t worth the risk.”

“I never sensed you,” Gabriel said curiously. 

“As long as I wasn’t hiding my signature, her presence would mask mine. You would only be able to sense her,” she explained. 

“Oh. That makes sense. Are we…okay now?” Gabriel asked hopefully. 

“We are. We have been for a long time. I just needed time to come to terms with it. I just didn’t want to risk popping up and interfering while everything was proceeding as it should,” she told him. 

Gabriel shifted their young daughter into his husband’s lap and got up, pulling his grown daughter into a warm hug, and she hugged him back happily and then he and Sam switched. After a moment of explaining to little Sariel that this was her grown up self, she said, “Wow. I’m really pretty!” Everyone laughed and grown up Sariel thanked her for the compliment. 

That done, Gabriel asked, “So obviously something went off the rails here. What kind of damage control are we looking at?” 

“Actually, it’s all proceeding as it should,” she told him. “The circumstances are a little different. In my timeline, Dad was out visiting Uncle Dean and you and I had an argument about a year from now and I instinctively went to Dad in the human world and was sensed, but the outcome is the same. I would assume that Castiel, when he realized that he had failed to prevent my birth, went to Michael and he has been searching for this dimension since. This is what had to happen. You have to take the throne of heaven and you will usher in a golden era of peace for both heaven and earth. You ARE doing the right thing. One suggestion though. If I were you, I would make one of your first orders once you take the throne to be forbidding time travel. I would have to go back to the future then, but it would prevent anyone else from messing up the timeline anyway.”

“I wish I didn’t have to,” Gabriel grumbled, more than a little overwhelmed by the idea of ‘ushering in a golden era of peace’ and wondering how the runaway, screwup, archangel could manage something so big. 

Sariel just smiled knowingly at him. “The greatest rulers in history have been the ones who never wanted it, but instead had it thrust upon them. You’re the one who taught me that, and you will be one of the great rulers. Just trust your instincts and your heart. And don’t forget to lean on Dad too. He can be a big help as long as you don’t shut him out.”

Gabriel nodded. “Is there anything else you can tell me? Any advice you can give?” he asked. 

“I don’t need to give you advice. You do a great job all on your own. Other than forbidding time travel of course,” she chuckled. 

“Can you at least tell me how you were conceived? Or do you know?” he asked curiously. 

“You haven’t figured it out yet?” she asked amusedly. When they both shook their heads, she looked pointedly at the little girl who was now sitting between them on the couch and Gabriel snapped his fingers and created a bedroom and they sent her to bed. It took a little while to say their goodnights and get her ready for bed before they were settling back in the living room, and Sariel decided to explain. “It was your bonding…”

“But humans and angels have bonded before. Not often but it has happened and no Nephilim were born,” Gabriel interrupted. 

“It happened twice before you two. Both times with a male angel and a female human. The mingling of soul and grace brings down all barriers, including contraceptive ones. Male angels, when sleeping with humans, naturally keep any fertile seed from spilling over, but humans don’t have that same ability,” she said with a blush, not liking thinking so much about her fathers’ sex life. 

Gabriel turned that over in his head for a moment before he groaned. When they bonded, Sam had been the one inside him. Sam wouldn’t have been able to pull the fertile properties from his semen, and if she was right that the bonding pulled down the barriers he had placed to prevent pregnancy. It made sense. “Will you stay and hang out for a while?” he asked hopefully. 

“I can. For a little while,” she decided. She would have to be careful what she said, but she had missed them for so long, being relegated to only watching for the last ten years, so she couldn’t quite tear herself away yet. 

“So, tell me, Sariel…do you have any brothers or sisters?” Sam asked with a twinkle in his eye. If it would be safe for Nephilim in the future, he desperately wanted more children. 

“Now that would be telling,” she teased. She, of course, knew all about her siblings, but she didn’t want to risk changing things by them knowing too much. 

The next few hours were spent amicably, them getting to know their grown daughter, and Sariel carefully watching her speech, but she knew she shouldn’t stay long. The longer she stayed the more risk of her saying something she shouldn’t so she left shortly before midnight. 

The next morning, Sam and Gabriel discussed their plan of action, allowing Sariel to contribute as well. They decided that Sam and Sariel would go visit Dean and Bobby while Gabriel went to officially take over the throne. He would give his orders, reiterating what he had said yesterday, and forbidding any time travel without special dispensation from him alone. Sam and Sariel would have dinner on earth, giving Sari her first look at the world she’d heard so much about and then Gabriel would come get them and take them to heaven and they would settle into the castle there, introducing Sam and Sariel the next morning. 

After breakfast, they split up, Sam deciding that flummoxing Dean and Bobby with Sariel’s presence would be more fun than warning them so he pulled out his key to Bobby, knowing that Dean was staying with him this week, and father and daughter stepped through the door only to see two jaws drop. “Sam! Sariel! She…how…” Dean stammered. 

“Yesterday was a very eventful day,” Sam said cryptically. 

“Is she safe?” Bobby asked worriedly, looking around like he was expecting an army to fall on his head any second. 

“She is. We were found by heaven yesterday and there was a bit of a battle, but we’re all fine, and Gabriel is now the last archangel so is in command of heaven. He gave orders that Nephilim were no longer forbidden and that they were to be protected. He’s up there now, officially claiming the throne and getting things settled and he’ll come get us after dinner,” Sam explained. 

“That’s great!” Dean exclaimed. “Now we can take the munchkin out and show her the sights. Let’s go to the park first so she can meet and play with some other kids, then we can have lunch at the diner across the street and maybe…um…” he wracked his brain trying to think of more kid friendly activities. “We can see if there is a ball game or something this afternoon. Yeah. That would be awesome.”

Sam couldn’t help but laugh. Especially since Sari seemed to be getting just as excited as Dean was, so he didn’t have the heart to say no. Not that he probably would have anyway. He did feel the need to remind her before they left that she couldn’t use her powers in front of other humans. She had a little trouble relating to the other kids at the park at first, never having had contact with anyone but adults, but it didn’t take her long to adjust and she was having a ball. Their entire time at the diner for lunch was filled with chatter about everything she had done and who she had talked to and her new friends despite the fact that all three men had been watching the whole time. 

It turned out there was a game in town that afternoon. It was a high school baseball game, but it would still be fun for her. They still had a few hours to kill after lunch though, so Sam detoured them to the mall and her eyes went wide at the sight of it. If anything, she had even more energy at the mall than she had at the park and only the fact that she was looking forward to seeing an actual baseball game cut off her protests about leaving a few hours later. They had a dinner of hot dogs and popcorn at the game and it was a thoroughly exhausted child that accompanied them back to Bobby’s afterward. By the time Gabriel showed up to pick them up an hour after they got back, she was already dozing leaning against Sam. “Busy day?” Gabriel asked amusedly. 

“I think Dean and Bobby tried to fit as much of the human world into one day as they could manage,” Sam said with a chuckle. 

Her papa’s voice woke Sariel up completely and she took over the tale from there. “We went to the park and I made lots of new friends and then we ate lunch at this little wood building and it was neat and then we went someplace called a mall and there were soooo many stores there and like millions of people and then we went to a baseball game. Did you know that they wear funny clothes when they play?” she said all in one breath. 

Gabriel laughed as he reached down to pick her up. “I did actually. They are called uniforms. How about we get you up to the castle and get you to bed and you can tell me all about your day tomorrow and maybe this weekend we can come back for another visit.” 

“Can we really? That would be sooo much fun. You’ll come with us this time too won’t you papa?” she asked excitedly. 

“I promise,” he told her. It would take him quite a while to set things right in heaven. He could never have imagined how bad it got, but he would always make time for his little girl, and when they added a son a few years later, he would always make time for him too, as well as the twins he gave birth to five years after that. 

The growing family kept their promise about spending quite a bit of time on earth. Every month they took at least a few days there, and spent a while month once a year. Gabriel, with Sariel’s help, managed to figure out how to create a bracelet to suppress the powers of a Nephilim, but only used them when visiting earth with the ones that were too young not to understand that they needed to hide their powers. The secret to creating them stayed with him and Sariel and no one else would ever have the power to suppress these gifted children. Once Dean and Bobby died, they had regular visitors to their heavens which Gabriel had connected along with a few key others. They still spent time on earth, to let the kids explore and see what else was out there, but not nearly as much as when they had family to visit. 

Sariel had been right about the golden age. Within a few years of Gabriel taking control, heaven was ringing with laughter again, some of it even of children, both those born of two angels and Nephilim. Ten years later, there were around a hundred Nephilim running around heaven. Well, mostly being carried around heaven since they were generally very young. There had been a few angels, Castiel included, that had tried to work against him and had fallen, but the ones that were left were the ones that accepted their new fate, though some still lived on the edges of heaven in ‘joy-free zones’ but as long as they didn’t cause any trouble, they were free to live as they wished. The increased presence of angels on earth was even starting to turn things around there too. ‘Miracles’ were happening every day and the morale of people were rising to unseen heights and causing shock waves across the globe. 

It was twelve years after Gabriel had taken the throne when Sariel, who had been having dinner with them, suddenly collapsed. When she woke up a few hours later, they learned that she had regained the memories of her time-travel and after a very long conversation, mostly centered around the circumstances of her birth, they were all okay again. She remembered everything that happened, but she also remembered forgiving them, so it wasn’t too much of a stretch to do so again.


End file.
